KHL Coverage in North America

Last season, oneworld sports carried KHL games with English broadcasters. There were 2 games a week. Midseason oneworld sports was bought out by eleven sports. They did air the playoffs with the same announcers.
As of today, no word on the KHL on eleven sports. As they did not air today's opener. And furthermore, My next place to catch KHL hockey Laola.tv is not carrying any games this season. And finally the KHL YouTube channel does not have highlights from todays opening game.
US hockey fans are getting shutout from the second best league in the world.
I know I can go to illegal sites. But this is the KHL. I thought this league would want to expose there product to north america.
Can somebody tell me what is going on? This is not right.

I do not know what is going on with eleven sports & Laola. But I know that Sport TV is still negotiating with the KHL about extention of TV rights for Slovakia, Czech rep (& Hungary I hope). The broadcaster did not air yesterdayÂ´s match in SVK/CZ. Sport TVÂ´s KHL rights expired after 2016/17 season, the same situation was with Viasat in Finland (Sweden etc). The KHL adopted new strategy in May, of course they want more money from TV rights than in past. I guess negotiations are complicated. Viasat announced new KHL deal a few days ago. I hope Sport TV will announce the deal soon, because someone has to make a signal from SlovanÂ´s home matches. We do not have other big sport channel which could afford it. Another big sport channel here is Nova Sport, but they do not care about KHL (they broadcast NHL for so many years).

Geo-blocking of KHL Gamecenter (I mean highlights, I do not know about all matches) & Youtube - GC is blocked in Slovakia now, youtube works. If I remember Finns had similar problem last year. I guess it has something to do with selling internet rights (in a package with TV rights) to your country. You know, Viasat broadcasted games on their website last season, so KHL Gamecenter was blocked. Or am I wrong? The problem here in SVK is that KHL has not sold rights to local broadcaster yet. No highlights on Youtube - change of policy, they want to promote their gamecenter.

Last season, oneworld sports carried KHL games with English broadcasters. There were 2 games a week. Midseason oneworld sports was bought out by eleven sports. They did air the playoffs with the same announcers.
As of today, no word on the KHL on eleven sports. As they did not air today's opener. And furthermore, My next place to catch KHL hockey Laola.tv is not carrying any games this season. And finally the KHL YouTube channel does not have highlights from todays opening game.
US hockey fans are getting shutout from the second best league in the world.
I know I can go to illegal sites. But this is the KHL. I thought this league would want to expose there product to north america.
Can somebody tell me what is going on? This is not right.

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I think time zone difference is a factor, not to mention the NHL (the highest level of hockey) isn't even doing to well anyways, let alone trying to bring in another brand of hockey. There's just no point.

literally in the last minute agreed and announced: sport 1/2 CZ/SK is continueing KHL coverage of all slovan games and some others
for USA i think also a solution will be happening-shame that just laola1 didnt get rights at is was free with many games and i could watch it in USA as well

Last season, oneworld sports carried KHL games with English broadcasters. There were 2 games a week. Midseason oneworld sports was bought out by eleven sports. They did air the playoffs with the same announcers.
As of today, no word on the KHL on eleven sports. As they did not air today's opener. And furthermore, My next place to catch KHL hockey Laola.tv is not carrying any games this season. And finally the KHL YouTube channel does not have highlights from todays opening game.
US hockey fans are getting shutout from the second best league in the world.
I know I can go to illegal sites. But this is the KHL. I thought this league would want to expose there product to north america.
Can somebody tell me what is going on? This is not right.

Nope, you're likely not going to get any English commentary there, but lots of great hockey... and, you might just learn a bit of Russian along the way! I prefer Russian announcers over Slovak or Czech ones, even though I'm Slovak. (Well, for Slovan games, I might go to a Slovak announcer preferably, but for all other games, Russian announcers are the real deal, just like I watch NHL games with Canadian and US announcers, not some overseas ones.)

I wanted to purchase some games in US and it said that I cannot watch it in my geolocation....
I could do it last year...they also removed KHL from my russian tv package in USA due to some legal issues...

Hahahahahaha! They blacked us out! All of us! All the games! Including for me, who has just bought the "all-season" webcasts subscription!

This is RUSSIA, folks. The Russian way of doing business.

Fortunately, I have a VPN subscription elsewhere, so I can get around the geoblocking, but... incredible!!!

I did hear that, at the last minute, they were able to close a broadcasting deal with a crappy Czech TV station that shows a few games a week... and in response to that, the KHL BLOCKS ABSOLUTULY ALL GAMES !!!! (Perhaps they also closed a deal with a US broadcaster.)

I mean, not even the NHL at the height of their blackouts stupidity were ever able to do anything like that.

Last year, Eleven Sports showed some KHL games in the USA on Directv, including the last two playoff rounds in their entirety, but I have not determined whether they're showing any KHL this season or no.

Hahahahahaha! They blacked us out! All of us! All the games! Including for me, who has just bought the "all-season" webcasts subscription!

This is RUSSIA, folks. The Russian way of doing business.

Fortunately, I have a VPN subscription elsewhere, so I can get around the geoblocking, but... incredible!!!

I did hear that, at the last minute, they were able to close a broadcasting deal with a crappy Czech TV station that shows a few games a week... and in response to that, the KHL BLOCKS ABSOLUTULY ALL GAMES !!!! (Perhaps they also closed a deal with a US broadcaster.)

I mean, not even the NHL at the height of their blackouts stupidity were ever able to do anything like that.

The KHL has just sunk to a new low.

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So they charged your card and then told you you couldn't watch the games?

Russia gonna Russia.

So basically as of now, the only solution to watch in NA is to go to a shoddy streaming site. Awesome.

I still don't understand it though. It is money? It's always about money. Some explain why

So they charged your card and then told you you couldn't watch the games?

Russia gonna Russia.

So basically as of now, the only solution to watch in NA is to go to a shoddy streaming site. Awesome.

I still don't understand it though. It is money? It's always about money. Some explain why

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As frustrating as it is, it will obviously be about money. They sell games for what $2 on their site? So if they can strike a TV deal even with the worst TV company it will probably bring in more than each of the NA fans buying the odd game throughout the season.

They are trying so hard to f** until bloody the poor KHL fans in NA. Common, maybe their are < 100 of us in Canada who follow the KHL?

I have bought all kinds of merch, paid for their dogsh** streams and now they are going to great lengths to block me from viewing any tiny piece of content I may come across. This is so ruthless, words cant describe. It like I find ways to give them my money and they dont want it. To take away highlights is too much, these people clearly are uneducated in marketing to the worst degree. I am a CPA and business adviser and I cant begin to comprehend the stupidity of the marketing department. I would like to hear their arguments because I could use a good laugh.

Dazn, lol what a piece of garbage. How much did they really get from them. Once people like myself realize how crap it is, they will cancel anyways. What a terrible long term strategy - take some tiny tv rights payout to bend over anyone who gave a damn about the league half way across the world.

I just want to find the guy that was like - "hey, some guy in Canada is watching all of our Rutube videos - shut him down!"

So they charged your card and then told you you couldn't watch the games?

Russia gonna Russia.

So basically as of now, the only solution to watch in NA is to go to a shoddy streaming site.

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Not really. You can get a VPN subscription and then watch the official streams as you wish. VPNs are pretty affordable â€“ dozens of dollars per year. Yeah, it might be a pain if you were only to purchase VPN for the KHL and nothing else, but I find VPN extremely useful for getting around lots of other geoblocking as well, sports-related or not. Nothing comes close to watching the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon, for example.

So, yeah, the KHL took my money and then blocked me from watching anything, but thanks to VPN, I can just shrug it off. It's annoying, of course, to have to toggle the VPN switch just to watch a silly YouTube highlight reel, but it is an option.

As frustrating as it is, it will obviously be about money. They sell games for what $2 on their site? So if they can strike a TV deal even with the worst TV company it will probably bring in more than each of the NA fans buying the odd game throughout the season.

For what it's worth, you might want to give the KHL another chance on DAZN if you subscribe to that platform already. I think they're about to start showing five KHL games a week and have a new American commentator who just started today on the SKA-Spartak game.

For what it's worth, you might want to give the KHL another chance on DAZN if you subscribe to that platform already. I think they're about to start showing five KHL games a week and have a new American commentator who just started today on the SKA-Spartak game.

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I will wait until they sort things out at DAZN. If those games are weekday games then they are useless to North American viewers since most people work from 9AM to 1PM which are typical time spans of most of the games. If they offer 5 games a weekend, then Ill think about it.

If the American commentator has some type of experience on a major network, thats a step in the right direction. The British guy they had calling the games was making my ears bleed. I would rather listen to the Russian commentator - at least you can hear the names and pick out a few of the words. This British guy has no hockey knowledge and is calling them by the numbers... so bad